Infrastructure decline…cause?

[skeeter]

Ever since Kootchman left us I feel the need to “step it up” and represent the conservative/right side of things. Ha ha. I can’t keep it up! I’m tired and need to go to bed. <wink>

Good night all!

Share This

[dobro]

“…Maybe that’s where a big chunk of the money is going?”

Bingo.The US spends more on the military than the next 10 countries combined. Think about that. China, Russia, etc. We outspend #2 China 7 to 1. That’s not security, that’s insanity.

And with a budget like that, why should there ever be a controversy about having enough money to take care of our soldiers health care? Because the war profiteers (KBR, Halliburton,Lockheed-Martin, etc)are raking the big bucks for themselves, stealing it from the taxpayers and the soldiers who actually deserve some of it.

If you really care about debts and deficits,stop pressuring poor people, minorities, food stamp recipients, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security users and the like and turn your steely conservative/right side gaze upon the Military Industrial Complex trough and you’ll find some expenses that could and should definitely be cut. Billions.

Share This

[redblack]

skeeter: compensate for volume with quality. you’re doing fine and i, for one, like having you around. it’s no fun for us liberals to sit around patting ourselves on the back all day.

and regarding post 21, it’s not easy to compare those things, and your list is a little vague.

for example, “infrastructure” could mean transportation, which is largely block granted by the fed to the states; or it could mean hospitals, which would fall under DHHS; or it could mean the electric grid, which would fall under energy; or it could mean dams and reservoirs, which would fall under interior and/or bureau of land management.

similarly, “corporate welfare” – a derogatory term, to be sure – could mean ignoring enforcement and punishment of tax avoidance and evasion; it could mean federal pork which goes directly to businesses like conagra through subsidy (which was originally intended for smaller family farms); or it could mean the amount of access they have to our government when compared to actual human constituents.

in any case, i believe our lack of infrastructure spending has more to do with vision and political will to fight those who would maintain the status quo – for whatever agenda.

the thread i started about having a municipal fiber optic broadband network in seattle is a perfect example. comcast would surely fight such a bold, progressive move tooth and nail with a lot of lawyers and negative advertising. why? because of the way the city contracts wholesale telecommunications, they have a tidy monopoly going on here – and absolutely zero incentive to improve service or control prices. just the opposite, in fact, because they have no real competition.

this gets slightly OT, but is related to communication infrastructure and why it isn’t improving:

ratepayers in seattle have stockholm syndrome when it comes to internet and teevee bills. most of us – but certainly not all – no longer blush at paying $200 or more for internet, phone, and teevee. it doesn’t have to be that way, people. and comcast’s service and speeds ain’t that great. but i suppose when you have nothing but DSL to compare it to…

but that’s a perfect example of why better infrastructure is not being built out in the united states:

call it corporate protectionism.

if we paid the government half of what we pay corporate america for things like internet access, we’d have far greater value for our money. just look at tacoma’s click! network if you want to see a model where government and private business compete in a fairly straightforward manner – and without all of the ballyhoo that most conservatives claim will lead to government monopolies and such.

real, robust, honest-to-god competition scares the bejesus out of corporate america. they prefer to corner entire markets, stifle or buy all other competition, and set their rates based on profits instead of value. and it’s a huge impediment to making things better.

Share This

[wakeflood]

Absolutely, r/b, abso-fricking-lutely.

Share This

[wakeflood]

And as an aside to r/b’s note on corporate competition or lack thereof – you need only look so far as the Apple & ATT debacle to see that it applies entirely inside the corporate ecosystem as well as between public and private entities.

Jobs was so upset with their own shortsighted decision to grant sole iphone rights to ATT after their total service hose-up that he pondered everything short of buying ATT and blowing it up.

He pinned their reputation on another entity that knew they had Apple locked in and over a barrel for at least the contract period.

Like I always say, as soon as you hear the words “consumer choice” or “consumer value” coming from a corporation, check your wallet…

Share This

[skeeter]

“real, robust, honest-to-god competition scares the bejesus out of corporate america.”

I never thought about that. But I don’t think I agree. There is some truth that companies try to create and exploit monopolies. Microsoft comes to mind. But I can think of a lot of companies that thrive in competitive environments and the customer ends up winning with a quality product at an affordable price.

When I go through my house – the computer in my office, the car in my garage, the TV in my living room, the washer in my laundry room, the crib in my baby’s room, the fridge (with ice maker!) in my kitchen. All these seem like really great, high quality products. And every one of these products is either mildly or very much improved from anything you could buy ten or twenty years ago. Why are the products so good and affordable? I’d say it’s because of competition. Every product I’ve listed above has competition from rivals. A constant battle for market share with the consumer getting the benefit. And the products keep getting better and better while staying (in my opinion) pretty affordable.

I’ll try to read the thread about internet services. Just haven’t had a chance.

Share This

[hooper1961]

the money got re-directed to social service spending

Share This

[maplesyrup]

Could this have something to do with it?

http://www.xesc.cat/pashmina/attachments/Imp_Vehicles_per_capita_2030.pdf

Or this?

http://www.census-charts.com/Population/pop-us-1790-2000.html

Bottom line is there are more of us, staying alive longer, using more resources, and over time stuff breaks with increased usage.

Share This

[dobro]

More evidence that military spending is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse…

“On Tuesday the Senate unanimously passed a defense authorization bill that contains $17 billion more than the Pentagon asked for. They’ll go to conference over a House bill that has an addition $3 billion more than the Pentagon asked for.”

There’s $20 billion in unnecessary spending (that the Pentagon hasn’t even ASKED for) that you haven’t even heard about. Where’s the fiscal conservative outrage about that?

Share This

[wakeflood]

And for anyone who dares to say that the Pentagon itself doesn’t realize that they’re sucking away precious resources from things like education and infrastructure, I have something for you to read.

It’s ghost written by a couple of colonels from Joint Command and is generally accepted as being an indirect message from the Joint Chiefs.

Why won’t Congress listen?? Cuz they’re afraid to be called doves and anti-American by somebody. Wonder who? Oh, and they love the jobs in their districts building things we won’t ever need. Now THAT’S a productive use of our tax dollars. Right?

Here’s the link: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/13/the_y_article

Read it and absorb what these guys are saying. We’re going to rot out from within unless we start paying attention to our internal strength.

Share This

[wakeflood]

It’s an addict’s plea to have the parents stop giving them money to buy their drugs. Only the parents keep shoving checks into their pockets.

Share This

[WorldCitizen]

maplesyrup:

I would agree that the vast majority of our problems in this world right now are a direct result of overpopulation. And it’s not going away any time soon. In fact, I think I read somewhere (can’t remember the source) that we’re headed toward 10.5 Billion by 2050. Obviously this is going to cause a number of different issues depending on where you are in the world, but we’re far from immune to the resulting problems here in the US.

I’m not sure how much of an impact it’s had on infrastructure up to this point. I would guess quite a bit. But, this is even more of a reason to address the core of these problems now before we’re tied up with so many more complicated problems in the relatively near future. You know, give us a chance to compete in the sardine can that is future Earth.

Share This

[DBP]

Unfortunately, population growth and capitalism are currently locked into a unhealthy, co-dependent relationship.

Our whole capitalist model is based on the assumption of endless growth, is it not? It’s a system designed to keep building more new houses for more new people to live in, and to sell all those people an endless supply of c-r-r-rap.

Someday we’re going to run out of raw materials, clean air, and space, of course. But that’s not gonna rain on anyone’s parade until it actually happens. In the meantime, scarcity only drives the capitalist growth model into new heights of ecstacy, by making everything more expensive for buyers and thus, more profitable for sellers.

I believe that we can reach sustainability, but there’s gonna be lots of downsizing pains associated with that. In Europe – where population has been tapering off for some time – they’re still having trouble retooling their economic model. All across northern Europe, they’re finding it necessary to import people to do jobs they can no longer fill with locals. And that, in turn, has led to all kinds of social tensions.

We’re starting to see some of that here, too, with the massive influx of cheap labor from Mexico. Labor that doesn’t wanna pack up and go home when the “job” is “done” (which it never is, of course.)

Share This

[JayDee]

Using the logic that there are more cars and more people using the roads, the counter is that there should be a concomitant increase in revenue. The population of the US in 1955 was 166 million, in 2010, 308 million, a 185% increase. Washington, grew from 2.58 million in 1955 to an estimated 6.83 million today, a 265% increase.

–

US GDP grew from 414 Billion in ’55 to 14,508 Billion in 2010. An increase of 3,500%. Yet we cannot find money to fix/update/or even repair our infrastructure? Interstate-5 was built when our national GDP was a fraction of today’s yet we cannot afford to fix or replace it?

–

We are pampered victims of comfort, and the corporations, rich people, and yes, middle class need to pay higher taxes if we want to enjoy what our parents (or grandparents) built and funded for us.

–

And I, like DBP, wonder how we can grow like cancer yet not somehow end up in a similar fate. I have yet to see an economic model that supports “growth” of 0% much less negative %; at the same time my company wants to see 10% growth in our business year-to-year…

Share This

[dobro]

As far as numbers and figures go, it’s really pretty simple. Corporate profits are the highest they’ve ever been. Wages are the lowest they’ve been in 50 years. Somebody is sucking all the money out of this economy and its not poor people or middle class people.

Share This

[redblack]

jaydee: well-said and right to the point.

Share This

[wakeflood]

Agreed, re: Jaydee, et al.

We’ve blown by all the stop signs and don’t seem able to control our reproduction or “me first” mindset – as a species. Whatever hive mind we have is NOT serving our long term best interest.

The laws of nature are fairly immutable and I don’t think it takes much investigation to determine that a comeuppance is due with regards to population. Any organism that outgrows the environment’s capacity to sustain it, gets a hard slap down. The four horsemen are saddled up.

This is one of the reasons I’m confident there is no god, and certainly not an interventionist one. Why would such a being concoct a species with such promise and doom it with such character flaw?

Have a nice day. :-)

Share This

[skeeter]

“Somebody is sucking all the money out of this economy and its not poor people or middle class people.”

In 2000, one out of fifty Americans received food stamps/EBT. In 2012, one out of seven Americans receive food stamps/EBT.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/05/03/about-1-in-7-americans-receive-food-stamps/

I am not saying food stamps are bad. Maybe everyone should get food stamps. But I cannot understand how any rational person could conclude that poverty is not costing tax dollars at the expense of other spending priorities.

With so many poor people in this country we need to spend a great deal of money on services for the poor. So if we want to solve the infrastructure problem we have to first understand how we can get poverty back to historical (or lower) levels.

Share This

[dobro]

The SNAP program cost 78 billion dollars in 2011

“The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) is the nation’s most important anti-hunger program. In 2011, it helped almost 45 million low-income Americans to afford a nutritionally adequate diet in a typical month.

Nearly 75 percent of SNAP participants are in families with children; more than one-quarter of participants are in households with seniors or people with disabilities.”

Military spending 2011 769 billion.

TARP bank bailouts 700 billion.

Maybe we could shift some of that spending around (prioritize)and pull the bottom up a bit rather than watching the top get further away.

Why are there so many people in poverty in the richest country in the world? Surely, you don’t think that half the citizens in this country are lazy moochers.

Share This

[DBP]

We interrupt this discussion of planetary crowd control to bring you an important announcement . . .

 

The Romney family announces their newest addition, Kazarie Tempest Romney, born on 2:30 PM, December 1st, 2012 at Salt Lake City General.

Kazarie is Mitt and Ann Romney’s 117th grandchild. In the spirit of the times, the Romneys have announced that they will curtail their plans to have an average-sized Utah family and will start tapering off sometime within the next two decades.

 

 

Share This

[365Stairs]

Since the problem is least likely to be solved here…I blame MTV (80’s), Internet craze(90’s)FaceBook (2004 to…), and while I am it…Myself for the lack of paying attention to anything longer than 5 minutes…

What was the question?

Engineers did / do not lack vision. They likely drew up awesome plans to fit for growth…but the majority of investors want the quick installation and “break/fix” methods. Or, walking around some areas of certain cities…Break…”fugget ’bout it” metality.

Unless there is a RESET BUTTON someplace handy…we can’t truly afford to build what is truly needed any more…and…barely afford to fix what we have – because of all the higher priorities in place…and throw in a few added natural and unnatural disasters…

Share This

[redblack]

365: then the question becomes: do we want to let it collapse? if so, mission accomplished.

but if we want to repair what we have and create newer, advanced infrastructure, then we have to pay for it. such an endeavor may involve creative funding mechanisms and a redistribution of our priorities – maybe even a different way of looking at currency itself.

but we can do this, and i believe we must.

Share This

[skeeter]

The *world* might have an overpopulation problem. But I don’t think the U.S. does.

I say let the Romneys have 18 kids each. If they are able to raise their children to stay in school, follow the law, pay tax, and be self-sufficient, I say “bring it on!” They are doing the rest of us a favor.

Share This

[wakeflood]

I’m really tired of this notion that we’re a “broke” country and we can’t afford things like maintaining infrastructure, decent affordable education, etc.

The fact of the matter is, our debt is manageable if we have reasonable and progressive taxation, AND invest in things like education and green technologies. We blew an opportunity to have an “Apollo” style program for renewable energy that could put us in the lead for a generation selling it to the rest of the world. What happens instead? We Walmartize the country, build a military for last century’s wars and write huge checks to China.

Know what China’s doing with those checks? They’re cornering the market on all the precious minerals and natural resources that will power the green energy grid of this century. Don’t take my word for it. Do a little research. They’re laughing all the way to the green bank. And here we sit with a frown in the corner arguing about foodstamps while they graduate 50,000 engineers a year to our 5,000.

Empires have limited lifetimes and ours – thanks in great part to the short term “freedom from taxes” mindset – is a setting sun.

Share This

[wakeflood]

And we need to refind our soul. We used to have one. We used to be able to snap ourselves out of trances like this. It sometimes takes a few years to realize your soul is gone, your shame is gone, your humanity is gone, but we’re most definitely there.

I don’t know who on the right has the power to break the spell but I hope that person is currently writing their speech.

Where’s our Joe Welch during the McCarthy hearings. “Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you no decency?”

Share This

[Author]

Posts